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↳ 035, epilogue

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𝐓𝐇𝐄𝐑𝐄 𝐈𝐒 𝐀 𝐌𝐔𝐑𝐌𝐔𝐑 within the universe once all the lights go out. Once the credits roll and fade to black. It is subtle, a soft fluttering, that only the ones with keen ears can hear and witness. It comes and goes, ebbs and flows, and yet, she is the only one that can feel it. This murmur, this delicate whisper, has been on her skin.

It coats her like blood, all thick and red.

But it is not the same. None of this would ever be the same again.

The blonde vampire with the beautiful light blue eyes wishes she could've been with her. She wishes she hadn't done what she did. She simply didn't know.

She didn't know the girl was linked to the annoying Gilbert, nor to the hunter. If she had known, she wouldn't have done it, she swears on everything she'd ever believed in that she wouldn't have done it. She would never have risked Colette Copeman's life.

She was her sunlight. Her sparkling champagne laugh, her tangy sweet tongued Colette.

But she let vengeance get its claws into her, like it always did. It was something she ran to when things went wrong. She would admit that even when she discovered her brother was still alive, that asshole, she thought of a thousand ways to punish him and rupturing his precious blood bags had been only the start.

But she wouldn't have wanted that for you.

When she'd heard of what happened, how she had caused it, she wanted to burn down the edges of the universe until they were crisp and brittle like her aged heart. It wasn't like she'd meant to fall for the girl, but things had changed when her mother returned. No matter what she felt for Colette, her mother's love would always be something she craved far greater.

The beautiful blonde vampire with the light blue eyes wanted to leave town after the girl's death, but couldn't find it in her to leave, to run after Elijah and travel somewhere far worse with Klaus. She even contemplated finding Kol, but Mystic Falls had its hold on her. It was where her love was born and where she had died.

She wishes, more than anything, that they could've had a moment so splendid it would've caused the redhead to run off with her to someplace safe. They could've lived their days together somewhere secluded from harm, and from that dangerous pain she knew the girl had been poisoned with for so long. Their little house in the mountains or in the bustling city of some perfectly suburban town.

When she takes new lovers, she compares them all to her.

They hadn't had a moment like the one she knew she'd had with her brother, and she was envious. Perhaps that was why she wanted revenge far more than she had ever in her life. She wanted to take the girl in her bed, run her hands up her perfect legs, wrap a hand around her throat and force her to meet her eyes so she could watch her as she devoured every drop and sweet nectar.

She wanted the girl writhing in a way she would never have gotten from her brother nor the Salvatore, but time was not on their side. It never had been.

And it seems it never will, unless this other life the girl dreamed of was real. She dreams, late at night, that it is. They are meeting in a bar, there is loud music and drinks sloshing on trays, and the room would be dimmed and perhaps even foggy from smoke and she would see her at the bar. Her legs crossed, a daggered heel gracing either foot. Her toned leg bouncing with bored anticipation.

She would be drawing little circles in her drink with a straw, and when the blonde vampire would approach her, blood would rush to her cheeks. They would greet like old friends, share a few drinks, and talk until the doors closed and they'd be lost in the streets of a cold night which would make them huddle together. The blonde vampire thinks it would've been perfect like this because there would be no violence, no strange war between vampires and species. It would've been mundane, the way things usually happen.

But she was never meant for the mundane. She was never meant for normal and calm. Sometimes, she didn't think she was made for any of it. Not anymore. There had been too many losses, too many loved ones gone, and she fears there will never be a moment of peace from the grief. From the losing.

You will never get the love you think you deserve.

But still, she hopes, just like Colette did, that they will meet in another life and things will be different. Things will be better.

There is a moment, once he comes back to his body, that the big bad wolf thinks he sees her again. It's only for a moment, like the strange murmur within the universe that makes his stomach drop and his throat tighten.

Her red hair reflecting like gold in the sunlight and her smile whiter than any moon or star, her teeth sharp and aching. She gives him a coyote-serpent grin before it falls from her face.

He sees her crying, like he always does behind his stoic mask. He sees her heartbreak, and at night, when he finally believes he will sleep, he wakes to her screams echoing in his ears and rattling around in his chest.

His love. His light. His girl. His Colette.

Gone.

He'd seen her body in the water, but he had been too afraid to approach her as Tyler. He didn't want that to be the face she last sees. It should've been him in all his golden glory. He had crouched by the trees, shaking with such a fury because he'd allowed this to happen. If he hadn't let himself get caught, if he had just simply told his sister his plans, she wouldn't have gone rogue and killed the doppelganger. He'd started all of this by knocking down the domino in the row of messes that were awaiting him.

His keen sense of smell had told him she was lost, that she had passed, but something was amiss. There was something that wasn't right in the way he could smell her now. It was stronger, sharp like fangs and claws.

Maybe this is how she smelled you, all raw and open and sore.

He felt his heart cleave in two, the gristle and bone splitting and shuddering. It felt just as raw as battle, as war. This wound would never heal until he saw her again and he had this sinking feeling, like the one he felt when he saw her in his blurry eyes, that it would be soon.

His love. His light. His girl. His Colette.

His darling, beautiful, gruesomely sharp Colette.

It was an honor to be loved by her, to be given her love after the mistakes he had made. It was even more of an honor to find a vial of her blood tucked away in the pocket in his pants when his body was returned. He knew it was hers by the scent and the soft taste, because he had to taste it. He wanted to taste her while he could.

The big bad wolf had been given the chance to taste her, unlike others, and the thought pleased him so perfectly that he felt it in his chest rather than other places. He had never thought himself capable of love outside of the people made to love him. His girl, his light, his love had loved him when she didn't need to. She didn't have to take his heart into her hand and refuse to crush it, she didn't have to expose her neck in an act of love, she didn't have to link herself for her friend's survival, she didn't have to do a lot of things and those thoughts swirled inside his chest rather than his head because that was where he stored all his love for her.

Right beside his own heart. That was where she would always sit, at least until he saw her again, and she'd be in his arms instead of tucked away safely.

But she had been poisoned and so was he. This world...this power she had was given an expiration date they had tried to dodge around but you can't run from forever. He knew that better than anyone.

She had evaded her first date, but the second was destined. It was fated long before she had been born. His mother, his awful mother, had used her and right when they both thought his girl had come up on top, things shifted. Like they always do.

Like they always will.

Seeing her floating, seeing her stumbling through the forest clutching her waterlogged chest, his vision went red. He hopes she will never learn of what he'd done afterwards but he knows, because he feels her.

His rampage inside the Tin Fox was gruesome.

His destruction of the bar they'd first danced in had sent it to the ground. It had been the only way to conceal the murders. He painted the walls in blood, the floors slippery with entrails, hearts crushed and split in two because who dared love and live when she could not? He did the same with their lungs because if she could not breathe then nor shall they.

He didn't feel guilty once it was over and the bodies were burning along with the bar. Nothing could make him feel remorseful for what he'd done because the bar had been his, theirs, in a way. It had been theirs for that night. Her in his arms, her taking his drink, her golden body brushing up against his own. He'd never loved like that before, never fallen that fast. She was intoxicating in the way that he wanted to drink and drink until he too was drowning.

His Colette had swallowed him whole.

He would kill millions for her and her love.

When he sits by her family plot, watching the mausoleum slowly be put up (he'd funded it because she deserved a beautiful place to rest until he saw her again), he can feel her all around him. He sees her in the roses, the dandelions, the little patches of moss that feel like cold silk, and feels her in the crisp breezes that smell like evergreen and rain. He pictures all things beautiful and soft with her. But...he sees the violence too.

He sees her in the blood he drinks, in the beating hearts he had stolen from cracked chests, from sunken rib cages and draining marrow. He sees her in the bloodlust he experiences during a kill, he sees her in flames consuming flesh and dead things. He feels her in the smell of warm blood, straight from the vein, and he tastes her with every drink.

When he takes new lovers, he can feel her hand around his heart. It's not painful but a gentle reminder that his heart will never be taken the way she had with his. It will never hold love for another as greatly as it did for his light.

He drags his thumb across his lip, imagining it was hers as she sits beside him in mourning. He ignores the pang in his chest, the rupture of his heart, and breathes in the cold air and hopes she'll be okay with what he must do.

He prays she'll accept him for the damage and violence he will commit.

The arrogant vampire sees her sometimes, in his dreams. She is there, with her wistful smile and that hair that looked like it was burning. Sometimes, she was. Caught up in the flames he'd seen dance over her palms that one day by the lake where he thought he would've kissed her.

He would've kissed her more if he knew this would've been her fate. He would've held her a little longer each morning (if he had only crawled in her bed all the times he had wanted), he would've fought to be by her side. He would've fought more in general.

He would've torn teeth from jaws, nails from fingers, hearts from chests if it meant she would've stayed here just a second longer. That was all he wanted. Just one more second.

He could've gotten there if he had more time. He could've dragged her from the water himself.

But he'd made a fool of himself. He couldn't decipher between his emotions, his feelings, until it was all too late. He'd been so wrapped up in Elena for so long, it was difficult to find himself breathing fresher air when he assumed it would kill him. He didn't know Colette had been so much more to him than she seemed. He'd let it all go to waste, he let it go to hell.

When Alaric died in his arms, he'd never felt panic quite like that before. It had started not in his chest but in his head. It was a pounding like he could pass out. It had spread to his arms, this strange numb feeling, and it traveled all the way down to his legs. He couldn't move. He could hardly breathe.

He knew she was dead, no matter how many times he tried to call her, he knew. What was funny to him, in a twisted way, was the fact that he didn't try to call Elena because he knew and there was only one person he needed to be alive more than her. He knew Elena would come back, because she always did, but what he didn't know was if his best friend would.

Best friend. Yeah, that's what he calls her now because it hurts less than the truth.

Something that struck him immediately after was the fact that he had seen his brother cry. He hadn't seen his brother cry for some time now but with the news of Colette's body rocking up against the shoreline of the lake, he'd seen the first drops of a downfall. His brother didn't cry, nor did he, but things changed when her body was found. It changed in the way his heart beat, how his lung filled with air, how his eyes began to wander and blur. Stefan took it hard, far harder than he had expected but that was the hold Colette had over them. It was damning.

His brother had lost a rival, an earned banter that came with ease. She never tried to act differently around him, to treat him in ways other than what he deserved. Sometimes, the arrogant vampire could hear him crying or see it in his eyes when he'd leave his bedroom. It wasn't over Elena and her new found turning but rather over the roommate he had once battled against with words and snide looks.

The girls who had once been her friend, his little secret heart's companions, took it in stride but he could see that the damage was done. Something had been fractured and lost and they were desperately trying to find their way back to before.

Caroline wanted punishment. She wanted to hurt Rebekah. Bonnie wanted a friend, wanted her witch back. Elena wanted answers. She wanted a way to bring her back because the blood she'd given her wasn't enough to heal Cole's broken and cursed body. Tyler was indifferent, mostly because their only tie had been Klaus but he seemed distant. And Matt? Well, Matt was strangely heartbroken, all mangled up inside his jock chest. Damon wanted to punish him, to slam his fists through the boy's skull for being in the car with Elena.

He would've saved her to save his heart. He would've yanked her out from the car and let the boy drown. He would've drowned the entire world if it meant she'd be here. He also would've killed Rebekah but he knew what she meant to his heart, his little parrot. She would've killed him for even trying to harm a pretty hair on the blonde's head.

There were things he needed to atone for, things he wished he would have done differently. He'd used her at the dance because he didn't know what he was feeling and it wasn't fair to her. He'd seen the heartbreak shatter through her eyes and wondered, after all that time, she could smell the lie on his skin ever since he'd first kissed her.

He wished he had kissed every inch of her skin.

She tasted like honey and he wondered what other parts of her tasted like, too. Is it the same thick honey taste? Or is it something like the tang of an orange? A strawberry?

The thought keeps him up at night, tossing and turning in his empty bed. On some nights, he'll creep down the hall to avoid his brother and slip inside her room. It will always stand empty, waiting desperately for its owner to return but until then, he sits on her bed and feels her blankets under his skin. He even rests his head on the pillow next to hers and pretends she was there. Just another indent in the bed beside him.

He didn't deserve the love she gave him and on these nights, he pretends he'd given her more until every ounce of love and protection was owned by her and her alone. He should've helped her more. He should've been there.

The night she killed Esther, he'd seen the blood coating her skin. He'd seen the arrow in her leg, the bullet lost somewhere in her side. He smelled the blood. It was ripe. Pungent. But he'd stood by Elena's side and made sure she got home safely, watching as Colette left with Klaus. Because of him, she'd chosen the enemy. She chose Klaus because of the love she would not receive from him.

If he had just told her how he felt from the first moment. If he had told her that he'd wanted her ever since she wound up on his doorstep freshly turned and pissed, it all would've been different. She would've been with him, she would've been able to live–

You know that isn't true. She was destined to die.

When he saw her enter the Mikaelson ball, he thought of a million different ways to kiss her. There was a powerful need to take her by the waist and pull her against him, even just for one dance. If all he was allowed was a dance, a small touch, he would've bared his fangs. But she'd sensed his need to see Elena, to force her out of the goddamn room and back into her home, and his heart, his best friend, his stranger's soul, had urged him to leave her.

It was easy to listen to her and he wished he hadn't. Dancing with her, kissing her, that would've been the better option. But he was a coward. An asshole. A complete fuck-up when it came to her and it would eat away at him for the rest of his long life.

Elena was a good distraction, though. It kept his mind focused on helping her through the transition rather than sitting down with his thoughts for too long. But she would never have her smile or her laugh or her cool gaze. She would never be her.

Her body was found by Tyler Lockwood and Stefan answered his phone from the morgue. He found out the two greatest loves of his life were both dead and only one was going to come back.

And it wasn't the one he wanted.

He resented himself for thinking this way but it wasn't something he could help. Her saw her everywhere, in everything, in the way Klaus's eyes seemed dull and the way Rebekah began to pick at her nails, in the way Stefan was more sullen, the way Elena researched day and night for answers she would never get.

In the way he couldn't sleep. In the way he had to hold his tongue not to speak her name, keep his eyes forward to avoid looking for her, but she was everywhere. She would always be everywhere and when he dreams, he dreams of only her like it was a greeting.

Like it was something coming home. Like it was something trying to reach through the fold.

The murmur likes to grow louder when things get difficult. It drums and throbs and hums, an eerie echo whispering from something beyond. It's a call home, drawing power from the earth, soaking into her dried skin.

It wants her to come home. It wants her to be safe. Her power still had plans, it had fated purpose. But her rival was dead and so was she but the earth didn't stop feeding her. The universe with its great mystical murmur would never stop. It fed off pain and weeping. It enjoyed the sorrow she brought them, the elegance and all the love.

She had wanted love so badly she didn't understand the love she was giving. She still had so much love to give, so much power to distribute. The universe thinks her power came from love instead of the old witch. Her love for others, her need to protect and help, was so great that the fiery magic, that pulsed and ached, grew and flourished.

The murmur likes to grow stronger, like the beat and hiss of a heartbeat.

It's a warning. It's a sign.

And it's all fated and destined.

Things were meant to end in fire and gore, in blood and honey, but that didn't mean the end was here. It didn't mean the ending was meant for now, nor any time soon.

The universe, with its magic and secret things, was tricky and fickle with the ways it played with its dead. It liked its mangled bodies, its broken hearts, its grief and mourning, but it adored its passion, its soulmates, its precious love.

The murmur had gained a new lover but not all lovers, not all precious monsters, were meant to be contained for long.

AUTHOR'S NOTE━━goodbye blood honey. 

im actually sobbing as i write this. this fic has been so important to me this past year and being able to write this for you all and for you to read colette's story is so special and makes my heart beat a lil harder for all of you <33

im going to write an author's note page, explain more of the story/what my ghost reader who edited these last two chapters for me came up with that opened my eyes.

until then, pls let me know your thoughts (im always willing to come back to colette ngl...if yall got....ideas.....)

thank you all <333